Somewhere Beyond the Sea
by featherfour
Summary: Sam leaps into the body of a shipwrecked sailor and gets stranded on a tropical island. Life should be pretty relaxing, but a storm blows up on the island, and in the imaging chamber, the sailor is dying.
1. Disclaimer

This story is a work of fanfiction based on Don Bellisario's _Quantum Leap_ characters. No infringement of copyright is intended. I write fanfiction as a way of extending my enjoyment of a show.

My thanks go to Helen Gerhard for her beta reading of my story. Apologies to Helen and to all American readers for ignoring her fine advice about changing my spellings to American style. I hope it doesn't grate on you all too much, it's just that as a writer, editor, proofreader and Australian, I just found it too confronting to use a different form of spelling. But I did double-check all the dubious spellings in my _Australian Oxford Dictionary_, so I assure you that any genuinely "bad" words that got past Helen and me are typos.

I would love to hear any feedback that you have on this, my very first _Quantum Leap_ story. I'm 


	2. Chapter 1

SOMEWHERE BEYOND THE SEA

…and he leaps. Sam finds himself horizontal, face downward and wet all over.

It could be hazing? Hazy? Hazardous? The last of the leap effect burns through him, leaving a new Swiss-cheese arrangement of his memories. He relaxes into the fit of this life and wonders where he is. Bar floor? Ballroom? Bathtub? He looks up and there's no one round to give him a clue. The horizon tips away to the left, picks up, then swings away again. Everything, as far as he can see, is blue. Above him it's blue and hot; around him it's blue and wet. Pool? Lake? Ocean. He's in the ocean. It's wet and he can taste salt spray coming up from…up from…up from a box. He's on a wooden box in the middle of the ocean. The box tilts and his feet dip into the water. The box tilts again and in the brief water-mirror he catches a glimpse of somebody's face, a man. Maybe late forties; a grizzled beard darkens his chin, he's sunburned and dehydrated and a little green. It occurs to Sam that he was never all that good at sailing and now he's shipwrecked and seasick.

'Oh boy.'


	3. Chapter 2

Sam let his head rest on the waterlogged wood of the crate. It didn't help. The slow rocking motion from when he'd first leapt in had become rugged chop and he hadn't managed to keep a hold on whatever his last meal had been. Colourful fish had swarmed around his crate and cleaned the lumps of what looked like diced carrot. Had diced carrot been the last thing he'd eaten? He couldn't remember. He'd have to work to get back memories of his previous leap; there was just this hollow place. Someone would come for him. He knew that. He just couldn't think who. The crate was lower in the water than it had been when he'd first leapt in. Inch by inch it was sinking. He wondered how good he was at swimming.

'Hey! There you are!'

A man. Walking on water towards him. Slowly the man sank into the water, still walking. Not swimming. Not wading. Walking through the water as if it wasn't there.

'Al.' He knew someone would come for him. 'Where am I?'

In his left hand, Al held a small, colourful control pad, in his right, a cigar. He took a brief pull on the cigar and then punched buttons on the control pad. 'According to Ziggy, you're fifteen degrees and twenty seven minutes North and…'

'Al.' Sam let his look of exasperation say what he wanted.

'Oh. Okay, well.' Al stuck the cigar between his teeth and picked at the control pad, frowned, bashed it twice so that it squealed at him and took the cigar back out again. 'You're six hundred and fifty three miles South West of Hawaii.'

Sam shook his head. It was a bad move. The violent purple and orange pattern of Al's shirt was already making him bilious. Now the headspin combined with the ever-shifting horizon and he felt his stomach starting to rebel again. He fought the rising tide inside, aware that he was dehydrated and a little sunstruck and that further loss of fluid was going to be a bad thing.

A long, woozy moment later, he looked up to see Al, disconcertingly dry, gazing at him.

'You okay kid? You don't look so good. I mean, really…'

'Do I usually get seasick?'

Al shrugged. 'You've been on boats before, ocean liners, even. I guess they're a little bigger than -' He shrugged and gestured towards Sam and the crate, his head bobbed up and down in time to the choppy movement over the waves. 'And maybe the sea was calmer then, too.'

Sam closed his eyes, wishing it would make a difference if he could just blot out the way the horizon kept sloshing around. He tried to focus on the sound of seagulls and distant surf. 'Who am I?'

'Ah, not sure.'

'How can you not be sure? Why don't you just ask the guy in the waiting room?' He opened his eyes again, gazing at the impossibly dry Al.

Al took a long, slow draw on his cigar, a delaying tactic that wasn't going to buy him a lot of time. 'Our friend in the waiting room's in a pretty bad way.' His right hand, with the cigar in it, dropped below the level of the waves and then reappeared, cigar still lit.

'What's wrong with him?' Sam braced himself against another assault from his stomach, swallowed hard and willed himself to be okay. 'Aside from terminal seasickness?'

'Basic exposure. He's dehydrated, he's got sunstroke and they think he's been drinking seawater.' Al made a sympathetic face and shook his head. 'If you hadn't leapt in when you did, Ziggy gave him a ninety eight percent chance of being dead within a half hour.'

'And I've been here - how long?'

'Half a day.'

'Half a day? Feels more like two weeks.' Two weeks inside a washing machine. 'So I've already changed history. The guy would've died but I'm still alive.' Not that he was going to last much longer. He'd heard of people throwing themselves overboard into stormy seas in order to escape the feeling of seasickness. Now he knew why. 'I guess all I have to do is just stay alive until I get rescued.'

Al stuck the cigar back into his mouth while his fingers danced a rapid tattoo over the control pad. He shook his head, bashed the pad a couple of times with the heel of his hand and shook his head again. He reached for the cigar and took a final puff. 'Ziggy says there's only a forty three, no, forty two percent chance of you getting rescued. What?' He turned away from Sam, looking across the water at the crazily tilted horizon. 'But he can't…What's Verbeena say?' He turned back to Sam. 'Listen, kid, I'm getting some static off Gooshie here.' He gestured towards whitecaps. 'I just need to go check something out, okay? Now don't go anywhere, I'll be right back.' He punched the keypad and a door-space of brilliant light opened in the middle of the ocean. Al stepped into the light and with a decisive punch of his keypad, vanished.

Sam felt some misgivings as Al left him alone. All he had for company was his misbehaving stomach, his sunburn and the sound of seagulls and surf. He wondered how far gone you had to be before you were tempted to start drinking salt water. Seagulls. If he could catch one, he stood a good chance of surviving. There was moisture in the meat. If he'd had the presence of mind to catch one of those fish when he'd first got sick, he'd be in a much better position now. On the other hand, did he want to eat something that had just eaten the thrown-up contents of his stomach? Who was he trying to kid anyway? He just wasn't some caveman who went around eating raw meat. Just thinking about the smell of raw poultry was making his stomach feel mutinous again. It was some time before it occurred to him that where there were seagulls and surf, there was also land.

The crate was wallowing in the water, too unstable for him to do anything but lie on it, but when it crested the next wave, he raised himself up as far as his arms could go and there, a whole lot closer than he might have dared hope, was an island. He lay back down and stuck his hand in the water and tried to row. So much for Ziggy and his forty-two percent. Sam was just about close enough to walk to the island. This guy was going to be rescued.

The waves were breaking, not on the beach but further out, on a coral reef. The crate rose up on the crest of a wave and smashed down against corals still covered by the water. He felt the wood catch and tug, break apart beneath him. Another couple of waves like that and he'd be on his own, swimming across the reef towards the bay and the pristine beach hugging it. Sam was not dressed for swimming. He was wearing a greasy boiler suit and a waterlogged pair of leather boots. The survivor, the man he'd leapt into, must have just about fallen onto the crate when his ship had gone down, otherwise those boots would have been gone. He clutched at the edge of the crate and unlaced the boots, one at a time, kicked them off, then popped the buttons of the boiler suit. Timing was critical. He'd pushed the suit down to waist level when the crate broke up beneath him, and he spent long seconds underwater, kicking his way out of it before he broke the surface and dragged in a welcome lungful of air.

Either he was in far worse condition than he'd bargained for, or he really sucked at swimming. The waves battered him as he tried to ride them to shore and he gulped for breath, choking, too often, on water instead. There was no one to urge him on but himself and he pulled towards the shore, each glimpse of it a little greyer, foamier, wetter than the last. In a dark washtub of water and froth and shrieking gulls, he thought he felt the solid safety of sand below him, just before everything went dark.


	4. Chapter 3

'Hey. Sam. Hey. C'mon.'

In front of him, something red. The glow of embers, a campfire just right for toasting marshmallows. No. An LED, the flickering interface of QL hardware. No. It really was an ember. It moved, danced through the darkness. Al's cigar.

'Al.'

'Welcome back. I was worried. You know it's impossible to do CPR on a hologram.'

Sam brushed the sand off his face. 'Do you even know CPR?'

Al shrugged. 'I've performed variations of the kiss of life.'

'I just bet you have.' Sam pushed himself up on his hands and knees, happy to be on solid ground again. He was hot and thirsty and tired and sore but he was alive. 'So where am I? What's this place called?'

'I did.' Al looked offended. 'I used to date this lifeguard.' He drew a long, slow drag on the cigar, staring off into the middle distance. 'Maaaaan, could she fill a swimsuit.'

'Al. Where am I?' Sam slumped, sitting on the sand, too tired to get up.

'The middle of nowhere.'

'Al!'

Al shrugged. 'This island doesn't have a name. I think you're the first person who's ever been here.'

'I have to get the guy in the waiting room rescued.'

Al shook his head. In the dim glow of his cigar his face was composed, serious. 'Odds are down to thirty seven percent.'

'Well what then?'

Al shrugged. 'Your guess is as good as mine. Checked things out for you while you were…' He waved his cigar over Sam's long, bare legs. '…out. Cheez, what the hell are you wearing? Have some consideration.'

The ragged old boxers left a great deal to be desired and not much for the imagination. A few molecules of underpants surrounded the holes out of which they were mostly composed.

'I'm sorry. Next time I'll put in a request to leap into someone who puts some real effort into choosing their underwear.'

'Well, if we're doing requests, I'd like something in red lace panties and a matching bra. Say a 34D.'

Sam pushed himself to a standing position, took two uncertain steps, then fell back onto the sand. He looked at Al, upside down. 'What? You want me to leap into a transvestite?'

'You want me to kick sand in your face?'

'Do I look like a ninety three pound weakling?'

'No. You look like a sea-turtle that's about to have something very bad happen to it. Oh yeah. You're in luck. You got water on this island.' The ember of Al's cigar swung through an arc, indicating off to Sam's left. 'I had a look around while you were indisposed. You got water, coconuts, bananas, breadfruit and mangoes.'

'And alllllll the seafood I can eat.'

'Paradise,' said Al.

Sam thought he meant it, too. He got to his feet again, paused while his equilibrium established itself, then began the slow wander along the beach toward where Al had promised water. 'I used to know this girl who made the best coconut cream pies. They were all sort of fluffy on top. Don't think she could cook anything else.'

'Was her name Mary Ann?'

'As a matter of fact, I think it was. Yeah. Mary Ann. Can't remember her surname.'

'Cheez, Sam.'

'What?'

'Swiss cheese.' Al pointed his cigar at Sam's head.

'What?' Now it was just getting exasperating.

'Or maybe just dehydration. The water's this way.'

Sam had wandered down the beach instead of along. He followed Al's lead up towards a cluster of palms and mangrove. 'How come you know Mary Ann?'

'Because like every red-blooded American boy I've sat in front of the TV watching _Gilligan's Island_ and imagined a threesome with Mary Ann and Ginger.'

'TV show?'

'You're remembering a TV show and for all the wrong reasons.'

'Oh. I guess that's why I couldn't remember what the coconut cream pie tasted like.'

Al shook his head in dismay. 'I bet you used to watch it just to see what the Professor could invent out of coconut shells that week.' He stopped and looked down. 'Here, don't fall in. There's your fresh water.'

He stood by and watched as Sam knelt down by the creek, not bothering to cup the water in his hands, but put his face into it, drawing down slow, grateful draughts past his split lips.

It felt so good. The water was cold and sweet. He could feel thick, dead layers of skin peeling off the inside of his mouth, flushed away by the wonderful water. It filled the empty places in his belly, washed the salt and sun out of his skin, cooled the heat out of his hands and neck and face. He lay in it, immersing himself, letting it run through his hair and swallowing, swallowing, swallowing it down.

'Hey.'

He looked up into Al's concerned face.

'Don't drink too much all at once or you'll give yourself the heave-hos.'

'I know.' Sam had to force himself to stop, though he was worried he might have been a little too late. He'd done enough throwing up for one day.

'You okay?'

It was so tempting to just stay there in the water. One more mouthful. No. He would wait, then have some more. Yeah, wait, and then have some more. He climbed out of the creek and sat on the sandy bank beside Al, their faces lit by Ziggy's handlink. 'Sure. Of course. So come on, you haven't told me anything about this leap. When are we and what do I need to do to get out of here?'

Al scratched his head, tapped at the keypad in an unconvincing way and then bashed it until it squawked at him. The lights on the handlink went out. Al threatened it with a fist and the lights came back on again. 'Uh, Ziggy's still working on that. Tell you what, why don't you get some sleep and we'll see what he's got for us.'

'Sleep?' Sam stared into the darkness. He ached all over. Despite the water he'd just drunk, he was still thirsty and the dehydration made him feel ill, slow and dizzy. He'd been lying on that box in salt water for the best part of the day and it had made him chafe where it wasn't polite to scratch. Sleep would be nice but in the gathering gloom there was nothing but the threatening shapes of palm trees looming over him and a lot of sand.

'Sure. Sleep. Pull up a palm leaf, make yourself a nest in the sand.' Al's hand dug invisible nests in the air. 'You know they say sleeping on sand is the most comfortable thing you can do. It conforms to the shape of the body. It's why people are so rested after a beach holiday.'

Sam didn't believe a word of it.

'You'll be fine, kid.' Al punched the door up and it appeared around him, a white rectangle that he stepped into and then it vanished.

With Al gone, Sam was left with a terrible sense of loss. He was also a little bit scared. Nobody lived on this island, that's what Al had said, and from what he'd seen in the brief time he'd already been there, he was inclined to agree. The thing was, with nobody around to help, why had he leapt? What was it that he needed to put right this time?

Aside from saving the life of the man he'd leapt into, simply by surviving, he could see no point to this leap, and that's what frightened him. He had to have a reason for being there. He had to have a purpose. There was always a beginning and an end to these things, but he could see no end. What if there was no higher power moving him through time? What if it was just human nature, his ability to see patterns, that had helped him up until now? What if this whole thing was just a pointless glitch in the machine he'd built? What if the island was an error and he was going to be stuck there forever, a hopeless, lonely Robinson Crusoe?

It was pointless dwelling on these problems. They wouldn't get him off the island or help with how he felt. What he needed to do right now was take care of himself so that he'd be able to do whatever was required of him, whenever it was. He just had to trust it would all happen soon.

He knelt back down by the water and drank as much as he could hold. His head was aching and he knew that was only going to get worse as the dehydration really set in. Back on the bank he kicked at the dry sand, wishing for somewhere a lot more comfortable to sleep. The night was warm, at least he had that, only the lightest breeze stirred the palm trees. In the gathering gloom of night he looked down at the sand to see how high up the tide came. He had no intention of getting wet again tonight. Not with salt water, anyway. He made a scrape in the sand and lined it with fallen fronds. He eased himself into the hip-hole and made a sand pillow. The fronds were soft beneath him and he was tired enough to fall asleep at once, but his night was restive. The sound of the surf crashing against the reef gave him dream-filled images of water and that tilting horizon that haunted him through the three or maybe four times that he got up to drink from the creek and to pee a little. He was glad when the last time he woke the sky was filled with pink and orange clouds and it was light enough to see. He was hungry.


	5. Chapter 4

Opening a coconut was a lot harder than he'd imagined. He smashed it against a rock until his arms ached. Then the husk broke apart and he was left with the hard inner nutshell with its incorrigible monkey face, mocking him. He imagined it winking and spent a long time tracing the image of the winking coconut back to a cartoon that featured an ambitious squirrel. As far as he could recall, that squirrel, when it finally succeeded in breaking the shell, found only another shell inside. He needed better luck.

He slammed the nut down on the rock again and again, the percussion shuddering up his arm and into his shoulder. On the fourth or maybe fifth go he heard a _crack_ and when he twisted the shell between his hands, it began to give. He held it with the break horizontal and peeled the two pieces apart. Cupped inside was the coconut juice. He tipped it, wanting to drink without spilling, but his hands shook and it leaked down the sides of his face. What he finally tasted was sweet and wonderful and he wished there was more. He nibbled the meat from around the edges, only wishing he could eat it more quickly because he was so hungry. The rainbow ear of an abalone shell shone at his feet. He picked it up and broke it against the rock so that it left a flat blade that he dug under the coconut meat, prising a lump of it out. Man the tool user. There was a primordial feel to that thought, he'd studied this, he knew about this. Al could tell him more, but he remembered some of it; the love of discovery. As if he'd been the one who struck the first flint, been the first to use a lever to move a rock. He could survive on this island. He could get this guy rescued. That had to be what it was all about.

Grey clouds were massing in the sky. They'd covered all the blue and the wind that had been a warm breath in the night had come about, raising the waves up and slamming them into the reef. He walked away from the beach. There were other fruit trees on the island: banana, breadfruit, mango. Al had said he was the first person ever to get there but it seemed unlikely. All these trees had probably been brought by whalers who left plants and animals on islands so they'd have something to eat in case they were ever shipwrecked and stranded there themselves. Often there were chickens and pigs as well, but he didn't think so in this case. He'd have heard the roosters crowing if there were chickens.

He wasn't sure what ripe breadfruit looked like, but some were bigger and softer than others and he pulled one of those down. The fruit was a little astringent. It would have gone better cooked, but he didn't fancy spending all day rubbing two sticks together to make a fire. Not until he really had to. He wondered what had happened to the box he'd floated in on. It had smashed on the reef, but surely its contents, or at least some of them, had washed onto the shore.

It would have been nice to see footprints in the sand, to have had some reassurance of other inhabitants on the island. The sound of the wind and surf were already driving him a little crazy.

'Hey. How's it going?'

All too often Al's arrival startled him. He jumped and the breadfruit fell out of his hand. He kicked at the sandy lump. 'That was my breakfast.'

'Sorry about that.' Al was wearing a Hawaiian shirt covered in pineapples and hula girls, underneath he had on white cotton pants and bright yellow sandals. 'Wow. Will you look at all this.' Al stopped and gazed out at the smashing waves, the wind-tossed trees, a lone seabird stalking along the waterline, poking its beak into the sand. 'Untouched wilderness. Throw in a few island girls and you'd have paradise.'

Sam frowned at him. So predictable.

'What?'

Sam, in his baggy, ragged underpants, hunched against the sting of sand that threatened to remove every hair from his legs and chest. The sky was bulked with thunderclouds; the sea was dark and dirty, churned with sand dragged up from its bottom. Some of the bird's feathers folded back in the wind, making it look scruffy and unkempt. 'I was hoping paradise would be a little more inviting than this.'

Al punched at Ziggy's link and blew out a stream of cigar smoke. 'It's August eight, nineteen fifty five and you're probably Abel.' He stared in confusion at the link, bashed it with his hand and took another puff of the cigar. 'Able seaman Roy Edwards.'

'Probably?'

Al nodded. 'The freighter _Dromedary_ went down with all hands lost. The guy we've got in the waiting room fits Edwards' profile.'

'Why don't you just ask him?'

Al gazed up. 'Sam, the guy's, not good. He's been unconscious since the leap. Docs've got him on drips and saline and whatever the hell else you give someone, but…' He shook his head.

What happens to the leaper when the person he leaps into dies? Sam had come too close on one occasion. He did not want to know. 'They can fix him. They have to.'

'Sure.' Al shrugged, unconvinced.

'Tell me what you know about him. About Edwards.'

'Not much to know. Forty eight, never married, lived with his mother until she died eighteen months ago.' Al gestured, open handed, towards Sam. 'I mean that's eighteen months ago from where you are.'

'No wife, no kids, no girl, no best friend?' Sam looked helpless.

Al shook his head. 'Nada.'

'There has to be something I can do.' Sam headed down the beach. The wind was coming hard off the waves and he was starting to feel cold. He hoped the crate he'd been riding had washed up, had brought clothes that he could wear and matches and real food with it.

'Just hang in there, kid. That's all.' They rounded a rock spit and found a sandy cove, its beach littered with debris. 'Oh, now will you look at that?' Al's brow wrinkled in disgust. 'You couldn't get any further from anywhere than this and look. That's just rubbish washed up.'

'It's what I was looking for.' Sam was delighted. He ran down the beach towards the clutter of objects and broken wood. There had to be something. Matches, food, a radio, anything. Al appeared beside him. Yes, there were clothes washed up.

'Very tasteful,' Al said. 'Just your colour.'

Sam was not amused. Scattered about him was underwear. Enormous silk bloomers, structurally sound foundation garments created for women of hippopotamic proportions. There were bras that might have been useful for carrying food or small children, their cups voluminous. Maybe he could use one of the bras to slingshot himself into orbit. The wind slammed salt spray into him and he wrapped his arms around him against the chill. Even if he put all of those things on they wouldn't keep out the wind or threatening rain, and he'd probably die of terminal embarrassment if anyone caught him wearing them.

'Hey, look at this.' Al was crouched down over a small suitcase, partly torn open.

Sam pulled the lid of it open. 'It's full of books.' Pulp fiction. Pulp romance fiction. _Illusion of Love_. There on the cover a smeary-eyed woman and the back of a man's head. _Finding Forever_. A man and woman locked in either a passionate grapple or a life and death struggle, it was hard to tell which because the artwork was bad and the book had got wet, its cover warped.

'Well, at least you won't get bored,' Al said.

'At least I'll have something to make a fire with. If I had something to start a fire with.'

'You could rub two sticks together.' Al plugged his cigar into his mouth and rubbed his open palms together for a moment. He took the cigar out and stared at the lit end of it. Sam shared his thought. If only. 'Maybe there's matches or something in that box over there.'

There was a hatbox half hidden under a clump of seaweed. Sam wasn't holding his breath over that one. What good was a hatbox? It probably had a hat in it and he didn't even need to keep the sun off. So different from yesterday, he was almost grateful for his sunburn because the back of his neck was the only part of him that was warm.

The lid of the hatbox was clipped down, so at least its contents were still intact. Inside, yes. A hat. It was one of those awful floral numbers that Sam's mother had always yearned after when they'd gone to state fairs. He remembered her standing in front of the millinery exhibitions gazing at them. She loved the ones with roses on them and a spray of feathers. This monstrosity had everything. Flowers, fake fruit and not just feathers but an entire dead bird, a little one, staring at him with crystal eyes. There was absolutely nothing you could do with that except…

Sam plunked it on his head. 'Well? What do you think?'

Al sucked slowly on the cigar and nodded. 'Oh, very you, Sam. Very you. Kind of reminds me of the Carmen Mirandah number you did in the talent show.'

Maybe he'd sing to keep warm. He was on a cold tropical island with nothing to wear but a ridiculous hat and a bunch of old lady underwear and nothing to do but read trash magazines that might have interested his grandmother. He tossed the hat back onto the sand.

'Now what?'

Al shrugged. 'Maybe there's more?'

There wasn't. Side by side the two of them walked the circumference of the island. On the other beaches they found seaweed and a dead turtle with fishing line twisted around one rotting flipper. Al tutted and shook his head in disgust, but Sam crouched on the sand and untangled the hard nylon line from the turtle's body. There was no telling how long he was going to be here. Mabye it would come in handy. There was a Coke bottle that had been in the water so long that its glass body had been sandblasted to opacity. It was no good for focussing light and creating fire, but it could carry liquid. Sam picked it up. He gathered wood washed up from his broken crate. He even picked up a rubber thong. Anything might come in handy.

They detoured through the middle of the island, but there wasn't much middle. The island was a volcanic outcrop, its centre a lake from which the single creek emerged. There was no sign that it had ever been inhabited in any way, and aside from crabs and seabirds, nothing lived there. They finished up at the spot by the creek where Sam had slept the night before. Already he'd come to think of it as kind of his home. He put his collection of found objects at the base of the palm tree and looked up into the forest. Trees hung with mangoes and bananas, breadfruit and coconut. 'I'm going to have my lunch, Al. Why don't you go get something to eat too?' He could see that Al was reluctant to leave him, but there was nothing to do here, and maybe he could scare some sense out of Ziggy.

'Yeah. Sure, okay. I'll see if Ziggy's got anything new for us. Don't go anywhere, will ya, kid?'

The wind picked up and the clouds got blacker. Sam could see the dark shadow of rain on the western horizon. This really wasn't good. He was already cold and the thought of a storm worried him. He had to do something, make a shelter, build a fire, something to protect himself.

He went back down to the beach and gathered together all of the wood from the broken crate and the books in the suitcase. He made several trips, carrying them back to the creek. Not that there was anything, really, at the creek, just trees and a bit of a sandbank. There were no caves or rocky shelters on the island, it was mostly worn down by the weather, but he needed somewhere to call home. On the last trip back the the beach he even picked up the old lady underwear and stuck it into the hatbox. He looked at the hat, lying in the sand. If nothing else, it was reassuring evidence that he was not alone in the world, that other life existed somewhere. Besides, it made him laugh. He picked it up and put it back on his head.

'Home sweet home, huh? Al was standing by the collection of wood and books. His brow creased when he looked at Sam. 'How you doing, kid?'

'I'm okay.' Sam tossed the hatbox down. The lid came off and the hat spilled out and rolled on its roses. 'Just a bit cold, that's all.'

'Think warm thoughts.'

'Yeah.' Sam bent down to pick up the hat. Goosebumps stood out on his arm and the wind whipped sand into his eyes. He dropped the box. A smaller box fell out of it.

Sam wiped at his face, trying to get the sand off. He and Al both bent over the smaller box. Sam opened it. He knew that, like him, Al was hoping for matches or some wonderful expensive lighter, fuelled up and ready to burn. He couldn't hide his disappointment when all he found was a collection of jewellery. Rubies, pearls, diamonds. Al met his gaze and shrugged, his expression bland, apologetic.

'Too bad it's not sunny.' Sam held the diamond brooch up and peered through the crystals.

'Well at least you'd be warm.'

'I think I could focus the sunlight through this big one and use it to make a fire.'

'I guess. Can't do it without sunlight though, MacGyver.'

Sam put the brooch back into its box. 'Maybe tomorrow. Uh, who's MacGyver?' He looked up through the tossing heads of the trees and into the black overhead.

Al looked up from the handlink. 'Another TV show. You used to watch it.'

'Did I?'

'He was a real good guy. Bit like the Professor out of _Gilligan's Island._ He was always making things out of…stuff.'

'Oh yeah?' Sam looked at him, doubtful.

'Like he could construct a bomb out of two paperclips, a bent straw and half a bar of soap. Always thinking on his feet. You loved that show.'

'He always had his Swiss Army Knife with him.'

'That's it.' Al nodded.

'Wonder how he'd get a fire started.' Sam wrapped his arms around himself, trying to rub away the goosebumps. A raindrop smacked into his forehead.

Al hid his dismay, punching the keyboard to Ziggy's link, slapping it with the broadside of his hand and making it squawk and then howl. Smacking it again and again. 'It can't be right.' He stared at someone invisible to Sam and chewed on his cigar. 'Well check it again, it just can't, that's all.' He swung the link, pointing at it, angry. 'It's the wrong time of year. Cheez.'

'What is it?'

Al's shoulders drooped, defeated. 'Cheez.'

Sam peered at the handlink. 'It can't be that bad.'

'It's worse than bad. It's - real bad.'

'What?' Raindrops spattered onto Sam's bare shoulders. He tried to ignore them.

Al's eyes were full of apology when they finally met Sam's. 'This storm's going to get worse.'


	6. Chapter 5

'How much worse?' Sam said.

'Ziggy's predicting a hurricane. Winds over fifty miles an hour, more rain and seas rising. I'd tell you to get to the high point on the island,' Al swallowed hard, 'but there isn't one.'

Sam clenched his jaws, his throat and mouth suddenly dry. He grabbed up one of the broken sides of the crate, a slab of wood nearly the size of a shovel's blade. 'I can dig,' he said. 'Into the side of this sand bank. It'll give me a bit of protection.'

'Sure,' Al said. 'You do that.'

Sam needed action. What else was he going to do, sit there and wait to be washed away or blown away by the rising wind? He dug between the roots of the trees, sand slipped away and avalanched beneath his attempts. He wasn't going to get far, or very deep, but he needed some way to keep the wind off him, somewhere to huddle and keep warm. He was hungry again, he wished he'd had time to get something to eat, more bananas and mangoes. Another coconut. He should have stopped and dug up a few of those crabs, but the thought of eating them raw didn't appeal. He supposed it would, when he got hungry enough. He wondered how long that would take. If the weather had been better he could have gone onto the reef and brought back some clams or maybe even caught a fish.

Al watched him for a while, his discomfort evident. The terrible helplessness each had when needing to give any physical support to the other. 'I just have to go do something,' he said. 'I'll be right back.'

'Sure.' There was nothing Al could do. Nothing in the world. Sam kept digging. His life depended on it. He forced his way between the tree roots and he dug until until his hands bled, until they went beyond pain and became numb with cold and the wood dropped from between his fingers. Rain washed through his hair and into his eyes, poured down his arms and back, stuck the ragged underpants to his body. The scrape he'd made was barely enough to cram himself into, but he dragged the silk underwear and draped it around his shoulders because even that was better than nothing and he grabbed up the hatbox and stuck it on his head. The box was solid cardboard and would keep the rain off. He knew he stood a better chance if he could keep his head warm. He huddled there, shaking with cold and pain and with fear. The wind roared and tore at the trees so that he could feel their roots moving, straining to hold onto the earth. Waves pounded the beach and the island shuddered. In a dazzling flash of what Sam thought at first was lightning, Al appeared.

Had he gone away just to get changed? He was wearing a thick, warm raincoat and waterproof hat. In one hand he had a large shopping bag, in the other, a halogen lamp with a power cord that faded to nothing. 'Well this looks cosy.' He put the bag onto the ground so that it disappeared and knelt down to look at Sam. 'I think I liked the hat with the bird better. How you doing, kid?'

Sam just didn't have the energy to lie. Al would have figured it out anyway, the way his teeth were chattering. 'I'm so cold.'

'That's what I thought. Got just the thing here.' Al hefted the lamp.

'What are you going to do with that?'

'Sam, c'mon. What's the one thing a hologram can provide?'

'Uh, light, I guess.'

'Exactly. So get out your diamond brooch and let's make fire.'

Sam rushed to find anything dry; tinder, fallen palm fronds, a couple of those books, the wood from his crate, driftwood he'd found on the beach, branches from nearby in the forest. The movement warmed him a little. He used the lid of the hatbox for added shelter and shredded coconut fibre and some of the pages from a book in a small pile. 'Okay.' He held the brooch in readiness.

'You ready, kid?'

'Yeah, go ahead, Al.'

Al snapped the halogen into life and for a moment Sam was dazzled by it. He steadied himself and held the brooch, angling it awkwardly, needing to keep it out of the wet. An intense dot of white glowed in the nest of paper and fibre.

'This is getting hot,' Al complained.

'So's this.'

Al shut the halogen off. Sam's little fire gave out a small, friendly light. He leaned down over the paper, a tiny flame danced there. He fed it with threads of coconut fibre and more pages of the book, added shredded palm frond and a stick. Raindrops made it sputter and threaten to die, but Sam added more paper, more fibre, building it until it could handle the weight of several sticks and a small chunk of the crate. He could feel the heat in his aching hands. 'That feels so good.' Sam held his fingers inches from the flame, felt its warmth on his nose and cheeks, up under his hatbox-hat. 'Thanks Al.'

'Any time.' Al put the halogen down and it vanished. He reached for empty air and the shopping bag reappeared in his hand. He pulled a butane bottle and camp stove out of the bag.

'What are you doing?'

'Making sure you stay warm.' Al connected the stove and bottle, lit the burner and settled it onto the ground, its flame flickering blue and yellow.

'I appreciate the sentiment but holograms don't generate any actual heat.'

'You gotta stay awake and you gotta think warm. That's the important thing.' Al kept his hand on the gas bottle of the stove, he didn't even have a cigar with him. He shuffled closer to Sam so that their shoulders were almost touching, except that they were decades apart and each only an image to the other. 'Check out the coat,' he said. 'Same as yours only blue.'

'What?' Sam looked at his bare chest. It would have been nice if he'd had a coat. Had Al just gone crazy?

'No. I said look at my coat. Go along with me here. You've gotta _think_ warm, Sam. Think it.'

'Sure.' No matter how hard he thought, it wasn't going to make him warm. The fire was small, he couldn't build it up too much in the confined space. He warmed his hands one at a time and pressed them against his chest but he was still shivering, still so very tired. It was hard keeping his eyes open against the rain and the muscle spasms. It was all just work. Even listening to the wind was work. He let his eyes close.

'Hey. What are you doing?'

'Sorry. Nothing. Just a little tired.'

'Well tired's no good. Beeks told me you have to stay awake.' Al turned Ziggy's link around so that Sam could see a new little screen had been wired onto it. 'Here we go.' Al punched the buttons and a rectangular grid appeared. A pink block composed of four cubes stacked so that they made an "L" shape appeared at the top of the grid and began to float down.

'Tetris? You're kidding me.' Sam was colder than he'd ever been in his life. He could hardly hear Al over the noise of the storm, and the rain was relentless, but his friend wanted to play this lame little game of block stacking.

Al kept his foot pressed against the gas bottle of the camp stove. As long as he was touching it with part of his body, it would remain visible. 'Come on. You have to tell me which way to move the blocks.'

'Al…'

'The best way to stay awake is to keep talking. Now while we do this I want you to tell me about the hottest you've ever been.'

'Think warm. I know. Shift that across to the left.' He pointed to the Tetris game, his hand shaking with cold, rainwater dripping from the end of his finger and falling through the screen. 'It was the summer of sixty nine. No, nineteen seventy. I'd just graduated high school.'

'You were about to start college.' Al's eyes glazed over for a moment. 'All those co-eds.'

'Too bad none of them were interested in a little kid, which is h-how they th-thought of me.'

'Think warm. It's summer.'

Sam set his jaws to stop his teeth chattering. 'Rotate that through ninety degrees and shift it two spaces to the right.' He stared at the steady blue and yellow flame of the camp stove and tried to imagine that the rain falling through it was the hologram and the heat coming off it was real. That in a moment Al would pour him a hot coffee. He added more sticks to his fire, but it hissed and the flame went low, the wood was damp. 'Come on,' he whispered to it.

'So how hot was that summer?'

His eyes met Al's intent, compassionate gaze. Al, without even the cigar in his hand. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen that.

'Hot. Let me tell you. It was hot. The chickens were laying hard boiled eggs.' It was the worst summer of his life and he felt as if time had stopped. Tom was gone and in the unrelenting heat of that summer it seemed as if the world could not forgive itself for that loss. He remembered the smell of dust rising off the straw in the barn, flies, thick and sticky in the holding yard outside of the milking shed. Everything made him think of death. He couldn't even be bothered pushing Katie off the sofa so that he could lie there and watch TV. His dad had come in from settling the cows down, dust caked into mud on his forehead where his hat had been. How much worse had things been for Al that summer? The first year of his internment as a prisoner of the Viet Cong. 'I lived that whole summer down by the waterhole, watching the river get lower and lower. That was the year Bess died.'

'Your Aunt?'

'Dad's old hunting dog. Followed me down to the river every time I went there. I was always taking shortcuts through the cornfield. It was twice as long if you went on the road.'

'Snakebite?'

Sam nodded. 'Poor Bessie. She didn't have many summers left in her, and I think her heart broke when Tom died. Don't know how she knew, but she knew. Then I nearly broke my back digging her grave. That ground was hard.' Sam looked at his hands. No calluses there any more, but they were ragged and bloody from the work he'd done that day, opening coconuts. Digging in the sand. Despite his little fire and Al's attempt to distract him, he still shook with cold.

'So tell me,' said Al. 'What was your best ever Thanksgiving?'

They talked. All night they talked through the roaring and shaking of the storm. Al must have been so cramped. He was sitting in the middle of the floor of the Imaging Chamber and from time to time Sam guessed that Gooshie and Dr Beeks came in and said something because Al's attention would wander and he'd say things that made no sense, or maybe it was just Sam who wasn't making sense. He knew he was getting bad. The hatbox had been a good headcover for a while, but the pounding rain had seeped into the cardboard and soaked the joins so that it fell off his head. He fed the box, bit by bit, to the fire, worried each time that he would drown it. Cherry coals glowed at its heart but the cold was eating its way into him. He tried to picture Gooshie and Beeks, even though he couldn't remember exactly what they looked like. Tall, round, warm people in thick polar coats and woollen hats pulled down to their ears. Maybe they were trying to be helpful but in the end Sam knew he was alone. The treatment and cure for hypothermia is heat and the shared heat of another human body is a fundamental resource. He couldn't get that from Al. Not even the feel of an arm around his shoulders. Just Al himself. Just the warmth of his personality. If he could make that work, the man was a magician.

'Hey come on or you're gonna crash it.'

'Huh?' Water streamed down the embankment above Sam and a thick mixture of sand and water poured over him. He ached. All over he ached, the muscles in his back, arms, legs, stomach shuddering so that it was hard to breathe now.

'The blue block.' Al waved Ziggy's link under his nose so that it was hard to focus.

'Two left. No. The other left.' His jaws locked. He was so tired. He didn't want to shiver any more. He didn't feel warm, the way you were supposed to when hypothermia finally got you, he wasn't losing it, he knew where he was, he just wanted to sleep. He'd had enough.

'C'mon Sam, stay with me. Stay with me, huh?'

But he couldn't.

'Tell me about your favourite Fourth of July.'

He thought of fireworks and the sizzle of hamburgers, his dad joking around with him and Tom and Katie The sound of his mother's voice and the taste of her Strawberry-Rhubarb pie, but ultimately there was just Al. No more real than a picture on a TV screen, flickering dimly late at night and he just couldn't stay awake. He'd been doing this for too long, it felt like forever and it had to stop. No more shaking, no more shivering, no more noise. The storm could go somewhere else, he just needed to sleep.

'Don't do this. Sam don't do this. I need you to stay awake.' Al raised his voice and put a hard, military edge to it. 'I mean it. Come on. Sam!' One last time, Sam opened his eyes. He could see the look of desperation on Al's face. Al put his hand in the fire, reached towards Sam, his hand going through Sam's. His hand came up to Sam's face and like a dream, vanished when it got there. It was less than the draught caused by a fly's wings.

Sam's eyes closed again. The night had suddenly gone calm. He thought he was dreaming it, this wish that the storm would end, but the wind had dropped from a roar to a howl to a whisper and now nothing.

'It's over.' He could hardly get the words out. He was so tired.

'No it's not Sam. It isn't. This is just the eye of the storm. We're in the middle and it's calm but all around it's still the hurricane and it's coming back. It's right on top of us and you have to stay awake. You hear me, Sam? Stay awake for me.'

'Anything for you, Al.' He added one more bit of broken crate to the fire and that took the last of his energy. It was a funny thing, just as Sam's eyes slid closed for the final time, he was sure he could see water on Al's face. How did that get there? It wasn't raining where Al was. How come his face was wet?


	7. Chapter 6

Sam woke up. Filtered sun patterned the sand and the sound of the waves was as calm and soothe as an apology. He'd been watching a crab crawl through the ashes of his dead fire and then try to pick the coloured lights off Ziggy's handlink before he realised what it all meant. He was awake. He was alive. He looked up. Al was lying beside him, chin propped in his hand. He was still wearing his coat but he'd taken the hat off. His hair was mussed up and his eyes were red-rimmed.

Al shook his head and put his hand to his mouth. He seemed surprised to note that there was no cigar in there. 'Do you know what I've been doing for the past two hours?' His voice was hoarse.

'Uh, no.' Sam made his first tentative attempt to stretch. He knew it was going to hurt, he'd been cramped up for so long.

'I've been sitting here watching you breathe.'

'Al that's kind of creepy.' Sam's mouth felt sticky and he was glad Al wasn't really there to experience what he assumed was his very bad breath. His left arm refused to move. It should have moved. He was lying on his right side. He tried to stretch out his left leg.

'I was yelling, trying to get you to wake up. Then the storm turned and the tree came down.'

Sam tried to turn his head but it wouldn't turn. He tried to move his arm and it wouldn't move. He looked to where Al was pointing. The roots of the palm tree were pressed against his shoulder, its trunk held his left leg pinned to the ground.

'I thought you were dead,' Al said.

'How am I going to get out of this?' Sam tried to pull himself out from under the weight of the tree. It shifted and one of the smaller roots dug into his cheek.

'Is there any give?'

Sam pushed again, flexing his shoulders and bracing himself against the tree. A trickle of sand spilled down behind him. His arms were totally numb, he had to just hope that he was moving them. He didn't feel anything until his left arm jerked loose and then hung in the space between the tree and the sand bank behind.

Al made a pained expression and exhaled a sympathetic moan. 'Thaaat's gotta hurt.'

'I can't feel anything.' It wasn't entirely true. Even as he spoke, pins and needles were crawling up his arm and through his hand.

'You're bleeding.'

Sam didn't let it bother him. His hand was coming awake and he needed it to move the tree. He tried pushing, the hand a blunt instrument, fingers still not working properly. The tree was too heavy.

'Can you dig?'

'Well maybe if my arm was about ten feet longer.' He'd have to reach over the trunk of the tree to dig at the sand under his leg. He pushed again, this time trying, not to move the tree but to force himself away from it. Sand gave way behind him and he eased himself onto his back, freeing up his right arm. It was a scary position, the tree was suspended an inch above his chest. He didn't like thinking about the possibility of the sand giving way beneath it, pinning him finally so that Al could watch him breathe his last.

'That's it. Now if you can just turn your hips, you can slide out.'

'I thought my hips were holding the tree up.'

Al leaned across to where the tree was balanced and peered at at it. Crabs scuttled over broken branches, dancing out of Al's way. One of them picked at the toe of Sam's left foot, but he didn't feel it and couldn't even twitch his foot to shoo it away.

'No, you're okay. It'll come down a little when you move, but the branch off this other tree over here'll keep it off you.'

'Are you sure?'

'Of course I'm sure. Come on, you don't want to stay here all day.'

Sam braced himself. The pins and needles in his arms were driving him crazy but he had to get out. He tried to dig the sand under him, to give himself a little more clearance from the tree. His hands were like turtle flippers. 'Al, why am I here?' He leaned over to the left, dug under himself for more clearance, was aware that the tree was dragging at his leg.

'That's it. Keep going. You're nearly over.' Al scrunched up his face in sympathy again. 'That's really gonna hurt.'

It took long moments, but Sam was finally lying on his back, the tree an inch above him. Now all he had to do was drag himself out from under it. Pins and needles spread like a rash of ants up his legs and he bit down on the agony of it.

'You okay?'

'Why am I here?'

Al stared at the handlink, his expression hopeless. 'Been asking that same question all night. Your guess is as good as mine.'

'That's no help.'

'I was quoting Ziggy.' Al shrugged. 'Well don't look at me. You're the one who programmed him.'

The first feeling beyond pain was creeping into Sam's legs. He used his feet to pull and his hands and elbows to push him along the sand and out from under the tree. It only took a moment and he was free. Relief rushed through him and he got to his feet. He made a couple of unsteady steps towards the creek before his still-numb left foot twisted under him and he thudded onto the ground. He pushed up into sitting position and rubbed his legs. There were bloody abrasions on his left thigh as well as his shoulder but they would heal quickly enough, as long as he avoided infection. He watched as one of the crabs crawled along the sand bank and clambered onto the roots of the suspended tree. The sand gave way and the tree crunched down, smashing into the spot where he'd been trapped. He rounded on Al, angry, frightened. 'You said that thing wasn't going to fall on me!'

Al shrugged. 'Well, it didn't.'

'I could've been killed.'

'But you weren't.' Al looked haggard, exhausted.

Al rubbed his hand across his chin and Sam heard the scrape of bristles. He reminded himself that this was probably also the longest that Al had gone without a cigar since, well since he'd started leaping, at least. Probably since they'd known each other. Without Al beside him all the last night, Sam wondered if he would have managed to survive.

'No. I wasn't. Why don't you go get yourself some breakfast while I see about getting my fire relit.'

'Sure.' Al nodded and used the handlink to open the door of the imaging chamber.

'Hey, and Al?'

'What?'

'Thanks for last night.'

A rectangle of light appeared around Al and he paused there, finger poised above the handlink's keypad. 'You know,' he said, 'a lot of women have said that to me, but you're the only guy.' He punched his finger down onto the keypad and vanished.

Sam stepped over fallen trees and branches, gathering fruit that had been torn down by the storm. His small collection of belongings was sheltered by the roots of the fallen tree: the wood from the broken crate, library of pulp novels, the ridiculous hat and underwear the bag of jewellery and the washed-up junk that he'd brought back. Sam dug out one of the books and fanned its pages open in the sun to dry. He hoped this was going to work. He had to have made this leap to save Edwards' life and get him rescued. Who knew? Maybe he did have someone special waiting for him back home. Only Sam wasn't going to get him rescued without a signal fire for some passing ship to see.

He pulled the first dry page out of the book and tore it into strips, settled them on a few shreds of coconut fibre nestled into the cold, damp coals of last night's fire. The brooch had the largest diamond. He held it up, adjusting its height until the rainbow prism vanished and a single blindingly brilliant white dot appeared on the paper. He squinted his eyes, trying to protect them. There was a haze that he thought at first was just his eyes playing tricks and then the smell of smoke. He was doing it!

'Hey, that's really great.'

Al's sudden appearance made Sam jump. The diamond lost focus and the heat dissipated, smoke vanished. 'I wish you wouldn't do that.'

'Well, I'm sorry. Next time I'll have a doorbell installed.'

'I just have to do this. I nearly had the fire going a second ago.'

Al's burning cigar tip hung beside the crumpled paper, decades out of his reach. The smoke began a second time and then a tiny flame erupted. Sam made a nest for it with the paper, fed it with threads of coconut fibre and splinters of wood. It wasn't till after he'd got the fire established, with more wood handy to throw on when he needed to feed it, that Sam realised how tired he was, and cramped from crouching over the blaze. This had to be the most un-relaxing tropical vacation anyone ever had. He eased himself into sitting position and stretched out his back.'

'So, does Ziggy have any clues for me yet?'

'Sorry Sam.'

'Well what am I supposed to do?'

'Maybe you're just here to relax and enjoy yourself.'

Sam got up, stretching his legs, wincing at the painful abrasions of his shoulder and thigh. 'Oh, of course. Because this is such a relaxing, enjoyable place.'

'It is now. Look at it. All this pristine tropical beauty.' Al's hand swept across the vista of shattered trees, smashed foliage and marching crabs, picking at fallen fruit.

'You're saying Time or Fate or God or whoever wants me to have a vacation.'

Al shrugged. 'You've been in stranger places than this.'

'No. It can't be that. It just can't.'

'Why not?'

'Because in order to become fully rested, and I mean _fully_, I'd have to stop thinking about leaping. I'd have to just want stay here. Then the force that makes me leap would have to take me away from paradise and that would be cruel. And God or Fate or whoever it is, has done a lot of things to me, but it's never been cruel.'

'There's always a first time.' Al bit down on the end of his cigar and the ember end grew bright for a moment.

'I can't believe that, Al.'

'You can't?'

Sam shook his head. 'I can't let myself believe it. I have to have faith.' Sam turned and began walking towards the beach.

'Sure. Faith.' Al followed.

Broken coral littered the sand, and the bodies of fish and seabirds that were being picked to the bone by the scuttling crabs. There was nothing of use. Al grumbled at a beer can and a wine bottle despoiling the beach as Sam picked them up, and then grumbled again because things would get so much worse in the coming decades. Sam bent to watch a pair of crabs duel over the wing of a seagull when he heard a _whoosh!_ coming from the water behind him.

'What was that?' He spun to face the water, searching it for signs of disturbance.


	8. Chapter 7

'I don't know,' Al said.

The two of them stood together, staring into the island's little bay. Light reflected off a million choppy wavelets. Seagulls floated on the water, dipping their beaks and preening their feathers.

'A submarine?'

'No. It wasn't a submarine.' Al looked exasperated.

'A…?' Sam forgot what he was going to suggest. He forgot to close his mouth, just stood there with it hanging open as a large, grey-blue shadow broke the surface of the water and expelled a jet of mist into the air with another _whoosh!_ and then vanished again.

Al's expression was equally dumbfounded. His eyebrows extended themselves towards his hairline and his cigar hung limp from his fingers. 'Sam.' His voice was husky, breathless. 'Do you know what that was?'

Big. It was something big. And it had something to do with milk. Sam knew he should know this one. Big and milk. Swiss cheese or not, he had to get his brain to function. 'A…cow?'

'No.' This time Al's expression was pure exasperation. 'It wasn't a cow. How could you think it was a cow?' He paused as the beast surfaced and blew and vanished again, exhaling a slow, rapt breath with its disappearance. 'That,' he said, his voice broken with awe, 'is a Blue Whale.'

'Blue Whale. I know what that is. That's the biggest whale. The biggest animal.'

Al nodded. 'The largest animal to have ever lived on earth.' Al's expression went from thoughtful to harsh. 'They're rare because those nozzles with the whaling boats hunt them. Harpoons, explosions, it's all…' He waved his cigar about in the air, unable to put in words exactly what "it all" was.

They stared out at the water, waiting for the whale to appear again. It was almost a minute later that the depths became a shadow and its spout misted the air above it. It rolled its back above the surface along to its small dorsal fin then sank without showing its flukes. The little bay was too shallow to allow it to dive properly.

'It's going to be in a lot of trouble when the tide goes all the way out,' Sam said.

'Oh cheez.' All keyed a question to Ziggy's handlink and smacked it till it squealed, threatened it with a fist, then bashed it again. 'Sam, I think you hit the nail right on the head there.'

'What?'

'It's the whale. Ziggy says there's a seventy nine percent chance you're here for the whale.'

The whale spouted again and lifted its pectoral flipper into the air. That flipper was twice as long as all of Sam. 'How am I supposed to help that?' He looked hopelessly as the fin swung through the air as if the beast was waving, then vanished, without a splash, back into the water.

'Keep it alive.'

'How?'

'Don't let it dry out if it gets stuck in the sun. These things spend half their lives in polar seas, they're very sensitive to heat.'

'How'm I supposed to keep a whole whale wet? I don't even have a bucket.'

Al stared into the middle distance, a brief shake of his head as if he was disagreeing with someone. Gooshie, probably. He turned back and focussed on Sam. 'Don't worry, kid. You'll think of something.' It was a false bravado, Al wasn't even fooling himself. 'Look, why don't I go and find out if Gooshie's got anything more on this for you.' He was gone before Sam could stop him.

There was just the beach and the crabs and the whale and Sam. How did you help a whale? He felt helpless, hopeless. If he'd been leapt here to do a job, and that job was to save a whale, then what happened when he didn't? Would he just have to stay and stay until he died there, until the crabs ate him down to bare bones? He walked along the water's edge to the rocky spit, then followed it in. Already the tide was dragging out, exposing clusters of shellfish, clams and oysters. He used a rock to smash them open, pulled them out of the shells and ate them fresh, streaming with the salt taste of the ocean. Was there some rule about not eating shellfish about months ending in the letter "Y" or something? He couldn't remember. Anyway, hadn't Al said it was August? So it should be okay. It was good to have something other than fruit in his belly.

The whale must have come in during the height of the storm when the water was deep enough over the reef for it to pass through without injuring itself on the coral crags. His knowledge of the dangers of the place began to filter through the gaps that twisted his memories into a labyrinth. Corals were full of bacteria that could cause terrible infections. He wondered how dangerous whales were. This kind weren't armed with teeth, but when you were that big, who needed teeth?

Sam circled the small island, dragging pieces of driftwood back to his fire, and tending it. He raked the coals into a heap and placed a breadfruit on them to roast. At least he had food now and warmth. He added more sticks and branches to the growing pile beside his signal fire so that it was there for him to add on. He gathered palm fronds as well, stacking them in a pile of their own on the other side, hoping they'd provide a plume of smoke that would attract a ship. Despite Al's assurance that he was there for the whale, Sam still felt as if it was the man he had to save. He looked around his campfire, the hatbox with the jewellery in it, the pile of junk books. He flicked open a book and wondered how long it was going to be before he resorted to reading about the amorous exploits of Sharmaine and Alphonse or Brighitta and James de la Roche. _Getting up from her chair, she turned, hesitantly at the sound of his voice, that voice she had so yearned for. _Nope. He dropped the book back onto the pile with a sigh of relief. He wasn't quite that desperate yet.

'They get married in the end.'

Sam let out a grunt of surprise. It never failed to startle him when Al did that. 'I wish you'd knock or something.'

Al shrugged. 'You figure out how I can knock and I will.'

'I mean, what if I was doing something, well, private.'

'I'd cover my eyes.'

'How do you know they get married in the end? Have you read that?'

'Those fantasies always finish up with the two people getting married. My sec-thir-sec-yeah, second wife was addicted to them. That's how come we got married.' He shook his head as if denying the memory. 'She never believed me when I told her those stories were ending halfway through the relationship, they never got up to the divorce part.'

Sam crouched down by the fire and used a stick to drag the breadfruit out. He wasn't sure if it was done but couldn't think of any way to tell other than by eating it. 'So did you find out anything more.'

'Yeah, but nothing you're gonna like hearing.'

'Try me.' He picked the breadfruit up, pulling at it to get it apart.

'Edwards is dying.'

Sam waited, shocked, to hear more. The breadfruit burned his fingers and he dropped it with a cry. He was doing everything he possibly could to get this man rescued. Edwards wasn't supposed to die. He stuck the burned fingers into his mouth and sucked them, waited for Al to give him some hope, tell him this was a joke, something.

'The docs've got him hooked up to life support. He flatlined but they got his heart beating again.'

'If he flatlined then that means his brain isn't functioning any more. He's dead.' All of a sudden Sam didn't feel like eating. Not breadfruit, not anything.

Al nodded, his expression helpless, apologetic.


	9. Chapter 8

'But how can I leap if there's nobody out there to…' Sam held his hands up palms inward, fingers pointed towards his chest.

Al shook Ziggy's handlink so that all the lights started flashing at once. 'Ziggy says it's all about the whale, kid. Help it out of the bay and you leap. Ninety two percent chance.'

'Back on the farm I could get the chickens to follow me if I held out a handful of corn, but how do you get a whale to follow you?' He bent to pick up the breadfruit, dusted off the worst of the sand, and broke it open. Fragrant steam rose off it into his face and his mouth watered. He took a small bite.

Al shrugged. 'Handful of plankton?' he suggested.

Mouth full of breadfruit, Sam shook his head and rolled his eyes at Al's dumb suggestion, but started walking towards the beach. Well, if rescuing a whale was going to get him to his next leap, then he had to rescue the whale. The tide was well on its way out. He dropped the rind and seeds of the fruit onto the sand.

'How could you do that?' Al gestured angrily with his cigar so that a clump of ash fell away and vanished.

'It's biodegradable, Al.' Already a small cluster of crabs had begun to gather at the discarded fruit.

The water sucked at his feet. Sam hitched the appalling underpants up and strode deeper. He could see that the whale had restricted its movements to the deepest part of the bay, the channel where most of the water came in and out on the tide, funnelled through a natural break in the reef. Al walked beside him, having to slow his pace since he wasn't actually wading. Sam had forgotten about the abrasion on his thigh until it entered the salt water. He winced at the stinging pain and stopped for a moment while he got used to it.

'You okay?' Al strolled back towards him.

'I guess.'

Al nodded. 'Salt water's good for cuts, right?'

'That's what they say.' Sam stared, apprehensive, at the dark shape of the whale in the water. It was so damn' big. It was ridiculously big. 'What if it gets spooked, Al?'

'These animals are gentle herbivores. It's not gonna bite you, doesn't even have teeth.'

'Cows are herbivores too, but that doesn't mean they're gentle. Besides, the krill these things eat is technically made up of animals, so they're carnivores.' The water came up to his middle, but as long as he kept out of the channel, it wasn't going to get a lot deeper this side of the reef.

'Now you're just getting nitpicky, Sam. These whales have never done harm to a human. They're just like big, wet puppy dogs.'

The whale rose to breathe and all Sam could see was a wall of flesh, a mountain of animal. If he hadn't known it was alive he might have thought it was some intrinsic part of the reef, a naturally occurring feature of the landscape. That thing had its own ecosystem, clusters of barnacles and other shellfish hung off its hide. Its pectoral fin was like a rock outcrop and above that, a strange protuberance that Sam suddenly realised was an eye. An eye that was looking at him.

He stopped still, afraid to move. Water sucked past him and his arm stung where salt bit into the cuts and abrasions there.

'What's the matter?' Al walked back to him again, cigar swinging through the water.

The whale's eye swivelled, its gaze focussed on Al, paused there for a moment, then returned to Sam. A low rumbling that Sam thought at first was an earthquake rippled through the water, through his body, he could feel it going core deep, recognising muscle, echoing off bone. The whale looked from Sam to Al and back to Sam again. The rumbling increased as its gaze focussed on Al, and then died away. It suddenly occurred to Sam what had just happened.

'Al. I wish you could have felt that.'

'I heard it all right. What was it?'

'It was the whale. It just used its sonar on us. It knows us. It knows you're here but that you're not really here. It _looked_ at us.'

Al shook his head from side to side in a slow gesture of awe. 'Can you believe that?'

'That's the most amazing thing I've ever experienced.' The whale's eye, now gazing at him, seemed to be filled with an infinite intelligence. 'I think you're right. I don't think it wants to hurt me.' He stepped right to the edge of the sand bar where it dropped away into the fast moving water of the channel. The whale had aligned itself with the water but it seemed to be afraid to go through. 'Hey big feller, it's okay. That's the way out.' Sam waved his hands as if he was coaxing a small dog. 'You've got your sonar. You can see it's safe.'

The whale exhaled, long and hard, rolled its eye and squeezed it shut, then emitted a long, low moan that sounded something like a dozen ten-ton trucks crossing a bridge.

Al punched the keys on Ziggy's handlink in desperate haste, shook it till the lights all went out in protest, then slapped it with his hand till they came back on again. It squalled at him. The whale was watching. 'You might be a little off calling the whale "feller". According to Ziggy it's a she.'

This presented what Sam could only describe as an appalling implication. 'I don't care what Ziggy says, Al, I'm _not_ kissing her.'

Al stuck his cigar into his mouth to free up both hands and tapped away at the handlink's keypad. 'The reason you're here is to help her give birth and then get back out there to her mate.'

'Give birth? No. That's not possible. Ziggy's blown a fuse.' He'd seen his dad help the vet when some of their cows had trouble delivering their calves. It generally needed a rubber glove that went all the way up to the shoulder with the vet doing a lot of stretching to get the calf all turned around the right way. Sometimes it involved ropes and tackle, his dad and the vet both straining to get the slippery calf delivered. There was a reason he'd studied medicine, not veterinary science. 'How big is a baby whale?'

Al tapped the keys of the handlink. 'Ten tons,' he read.

'And I'm supposed to help deliver that how?'

'Baby whales need help to get to the surface when they're born, so they can take their first breath. The mother's trapped in that narrow channel, she won't be able to turn round and get to the baby. He'll die. This leap's all about the survival of a species, Sam.'

'How can just one individual make a difference?'

Al didn't answer. He stuck the cigar in his mouth and gazed at Sam, eyebrows raised, as if Sam should have known. As if that was the dumbest question ever asked. 'Ziggy says she's not far off.'

'How can he tell?'

'Just listen to the way she's breathing.'

As if on cue, the whale exhaled again. A long, shuddering breath followed by that low moan that sent ripples dancing across the waves of the bay and undoubtedly made the coral in the reef tremble. Sam's attention was caught by a _whoosh!_ from the ocean side of the reef and the low silhouette of a whale vanishing below the surface. 'That must be her mate.'

'See? You're just here to get this family back together.'

'Oh boy.'

The water sucked out past Sam. It seemed to be moving faster now. It left salt patches on his chest and belly where the sun dried it. He wished he had something to drink, a hat to protect him from the sun. Now dry and salty, the abrasions on his shoulder were stinging again. The embarrassing shorts revealed themselves on the outgoing tide. Sam dragged at them to stop them being so clingy, but it didn't help. At least there was only Al and the whale to see this, and neither of them cared. 'How long do you think this is going to take?'

'Ziggy says she's well into labour. Probably only be a couple'a hours.'

'If it's any consolation,' Sam called to the whale, 'I know exactly how you feel.' He wondered how she managed to stop herself being dragged into the reef by the tide. There was just the gentle fanning of the one pectoral fin he could see, and the slow rise and fall of her flukes, more than eighty feet distant from him, down towards the beach.

The sun beat down on Sam, reflected off the waves up at him. He could feel the slow cook of the back of his neck, top of his head, shoulders, chest, arms, legs. He watched Al apparently levitate and walk across the surface of the water towards the whale. She watched Al, unsure. She'd read him with her sonar and seen that he wasn't there, but her eye told her a different story. There was curiosity in her gaze, no alarm.

'That's it, girl.' Al's voice was gentle. He held the handlink out in front of him, danced his fingers across the keys, and then walked into the whale.

For at least half a minute, Sam forgot to breathe. Al had completely vanished. It wasn't that Sam was really worried. Since Al wasn't actually "there," no harm could come to him in the whale's belly. It was weird, that was all. Al disliked people walking through his holographic self and he generally treated Sam's world as if it was real. This was all just so out of character. He ran the still sore tips of his burned fingers across his cracked lower lip and waited.

'That was amazing!' Al reappeared. 'Do you know what's in there?' He gestured, awestruck, over his shoulder at the whale.

'A lot of really big intestines.'

'And a cute little baby whale. It's a girl, by the way.'

'You could see in there?'

'Well it was pretty dark.' Al held up the handlink, its lights flashing yellow and orange. 'But I could see a bit with this.'

'So what did you find out? Other than it's a girl.'

'That she's fully dilated.'

'I hope this isn't going to take too long.' Sam lost his balance for a moment and almost fell over. He thought at first it was because the light on the water was disorienting him, then he realised the tide was turning. Water swirled around him as the current stopped rushing out and began rushing in. 'I'd like this to be over before high tide.'

'High tide's the best time for her to get out, too. She should just glide past the coral with junior in tow.'

'I guess being pregnant's what stopped her getting out before when it was high.'

Al nodded. 'All just a waiting game now. Wish I could offer you one of these so you could pass the time in the tradition of all expectant fathers.' Al waved the cigar under Sam's nose.

Sam nodded. He wasn't in the mood. He was cold in the water now and he had a feeling his toes had turned into prunes. He was hot where he was out of the water, baked by the sun in a slow oven. He was tired and dehydrated and confused. He hoped he'd be able to help the whale when it finally gave birth, but he wasn't sure he was even able to help himself. Edwards was dead. The man he'd leapt into had flatlined, his brain no longer functioned. He was a piece of meat hooked up to a life support machine. The knowledge scared Sam. He'd never been in this position before. What was going to happen? Or was this his last leap? Was he here just to save a whale and then die, his final karmic debt adjusted? He'd felt more battered in this leap than the time he'd leapt into the boxer and the wrestler put together. It hurt emotionally as well as physically, he felt betrayed and neglected. At least he still had Al.

'I don't think it's gonna be long now.' Al held the handlink up and peered at it.

'Dig dzig…' Sam stopped and coughed his voice into behaving. 'Did Ziggy say that?' So much water, he wanted to drink. He could go back onto the island and sip from that stream. Al was right. The island was paradise. It had water.

'Yeah? Hear the way she's breathing?'

Sam nodded. The long, deep exhalations of before had changed to short, snorting puffs. Like a steam train struggling on a hill.

'What if she panics?' In the pain and confusion of delivering, the whale might thrash her flukes. It wouldn't be an act of aggression, but she might forget he was there. Childbirth was bad enough in humans. During transition women had been known to scream abuse and hit and kick their husbands and the hospital staff. If the whale even clipped Sam with her tail she'd kill him.

'Don't worry. She's not gonna hurt you. I'll be here. I'll be right here.'

'That really doesn't help.'

'You'll be okay, Sam. I promise.'

The whale uttered a low and terrible moan. She raised her flukes into the air and the visible part of her blue-grey hide twitched and shivered.

'I think this is it.' Sam was suddenly focussed.

The flukes raised and dropped repeatedly onto the water sending a great spray over Sam every time they lifted. Despite her apparent distress she seemed aware of Sam, of his fragility.

'There!' Al crowed.

A sudden bloom of red clouded the water and when it cleared Sam could see the baby whale, pink and limp, drifting on the incoming tide down past its mother's raised flukes and towards the sandbar side of the channel. Sam tried to run, pushing himself through the water to the baby. Its fins and flukes were twisted and creased, as if they'd been folded up inside. It waggled its flukes in its first feeble attempt to swim.

Sam plunged into the deeper water, reaching for the baby. He really didn't know what he was doing, his hands pushing against the hot rubber of its body, feeling the pleats of its throat folds. He thrust it up, towards the sky, towards the air it needed, surfaced with it and heard it snort and then inhale, heard the gentle _thuk_ as its blowhole slammed shut on its first breath of air.

'Let's get you back to your mommy.' Sam pushed the whale in order to turn it round. It patted at him with its pectoral flipper, rolled its eye playfully. It was three minutes old, it weighed ten tons, and the darn thing was cute. Sam had no idea how he was going to get it to move forward past against the push of the current. He didn't need to, though. The mother whale had let herself drift backwards so that now she could see her baby. The sound of her sonar boomed through the bay. The baby made a reply, something like an enraged bull, but only a squeak in comparison to its mother.

The big whale manoeuvred herself in the deepening water. She rolled onto her back, scooping her baby up with her pectoral flippers and hugging it against her. It was such a weirdly human act, Sam was stunned.

'Will you look at that?' Al was wiping tears off his face. 'That's just, that's just the most amazing thing I've ever seen.'

'I can get water now, can't I?' Sam was having trouble even standing now. He hadn't recovered from the shipwreck when the storm had happened, and he hadn't really recovered from the storm when this happened. He was exhausted and he needed water. Sleep and water. He felt that if he just laid down in the creek and did nothing but drink for the next seven or eight days, it might begin to deal with his thirst. The idea of drowning in the creek, of dying from sleep and water at the same time was like the promise of paradise.

He took an unsteady step towards the shore and his foot slipped into the deep, fast water of the channel. The whale righted herself and her pectoral fin came down towards Sam, eased under him and lifted him back onto the sandbank. A hundred ton whale. So gentle.

'Amazing,' Al said.

'She can get out now, can't she?'

Al nodded. 'Channel should be deep enough soon, and daddy's waiting out there.'

'I should leap.'

'You should leap.'

Something huge and red drifted down the channel and swirled onto the sandbank beside Sam. Knots of meat hung off it and a cloud of blood surrounded it. Little fish, washed in on the tide, swarmed around it, picking at it, snatching away mouthfuls of the meat. They must have brushed by Sam's legs, but he was too numb and frankly past caring.

'What the hell's that?' Al gawped in disgust and turned his face away from it.

'Placenta, I guess.' Sam started walking, pushing himself shorewards. The whales were saved by he hadn't leapt yet. Maybe he really could save this guy. Maybe the EEG machine was wrong, if Edwards had a very thick skull it could shield him from the machine. He might not be brainded at all.

'Oh jeez, Sam.' Al was looking back towards the open sea, his eyes wide in panic.

'What?'

'You gotta leap.'

Sam turned to see what he was looking at. The triangle fins of sharks cut through the water towards him. He stumbled backwards, wanting to get away from them and fell into the water. It was all silver and bubbled around him and he saw the sharks, their brutal eyes, their razor faces. He saw their mouths open and struggled against the rush of them, waited to feel the first chainsaw bite of them taking him apart.

Instead, he felt that first electric charge, like an extra heartbeat that surged out of his natural rhythm. His PQR wave carried on Quantum potential that rushed through him so that everything went blue…

…and he leaps…


End file.
